Tactics for a Silent War
by Shadsie
Summary: Though long-dead, Grima's influence is still felt in the world. Morgan comes to his mother to show her the mysterious mark that has appeared on his body. He complains about feelings of darkness clawing at his heart. She has fought these inner battles before many times and shares her winning strategies. (Post-game setting, Chrom x Robin Morgan parentage).


_**Disclaimer and Notes**_ _: Fire Emblem and related things belong to Nintendo, Intelligent Systems and assorted people whom I am not paying for literature rights. Meh. I'm also planning to remain as poor at the end of this fic as I was at the beginning._

 _This is inspired by fan-speculation I have encountered regarding Chrom x Female Avatar-created children and a fanart I flashed by of a troubled Chrom-fathered Morgan. I don't know if it actually makes any canon-sense, but I thought it was a good metaphorical platform, so to speak. (I also was told that Lucina's in-game sibling gets a brand in the eye opposite of hers if you look really closely. I looked at my file and didn't see it / couldn't tell, but I went with the idea for storytelling purposes)._

 _Have not played any DLC at the time of writing this. I played FE:A as a borrowed game with no DLC._

* * *

 **TACTICS FOR A SILENT WAR**

Strategies for war were no longer needed on an active basis in Ylisse, but a retired tactician still practiced them out on a beloved old game board. The country and its neighbors were at peace, either genuine in nature or through brokered-deals, and had been for many years, but Lady Robin wanted to always be ready for anything.

She watched her children grow – the little girl she'd given birth to between wars and the boy she'd had after she'd returned to life after the events that had made her a legend. Her husband of course, was even more famed as the rightful ruler of the land, ordained by the Divine Dragon and even more importantly – beloved by the people. Robin's story wasn't nearly as important, she thought. Some called her the "living martyr," but what she had been birthed to be in the first place balanced the scales for her.

Those that had come from a defied future had largely gone onto parts unknown. Robin and Chrom knew that their children from that age were well. Their children in this timeline grew to resemble them more and more day by day as they entered adolescence. Lucina's serious demeanor seemed to be largely inborn. She did smile more often than her other self did – on that Robin and Chrom both agreed, but in every way, she was her father's child, just the same. Morgan was a blithe spirit, utterly fascinated with everything his mother studied, just the same – but he had memories of his childhood this time around. His parents had made sure they were mostly good ones.

Robin was watching her Lucina sword-train with her cousin Owain in the central palace training yard one crisp autumn afternoon when Morgan came up to her with a worried look.

He wore a coat that mimicked the favorite old piece that she clutched around her against the wind. She'd had the replica made for him as a recent birthday gift even though he'd been told the coat's origins as Plegian robes and educated in the meaning of its eye-symbols. Robin's coat had changed meaning entirely over the years: for the people of Ylisse, it was seen as a tactician's coat, fully-associated with her and thus with intelligence and heroism. Robin had her suspicions about the coat that Morgan's other self had worn, namely that it had not been made for him but was possibly something more along the lines of a tragic keepsake. At least Lucina was not required to wield Falchion, although it was known that she could. Chrom assured her that she wouldn't have to take up her birthright for a long, long time.

And she broke another basic steel sword against a training-dummy. Robin shook her head. She was getting to be as bad as her father about that. She turned to her second-born. "What do you need?"

"Mother… can you look at something with me? In private?" the boy asked.

"Hmmm? This isn't another prank is it? If you are trying to lead me into another pit-trap it had better be well thought-out enough to actually catch me."

"N-no," Morgan stammered, not his jovial self. "It's… kind of a body thing?"

"Oh!" Robin replied, her face reddening. "Are you certain that you don't want to talk with your father?"

"Nope," the boy said shaking his head. "I actually do need to talk to you, okay?"

"Well, alright."

The retired battle-tactician allowed her son to lead her, as always, wary of his playful attempts at traps and tricks. She looked into his eyes and didn't see the usual shining glee that was present when he had designs on trying to out-strategize her. He had so many "tells." She did notice his eye anew, though. Much like Lucina, an Exalt-brand marking him for Naga had decided to show up in one of his eyes. Both births had seen Robin freaking out a little, worried about whether or not her poor babies could see. They could just fine – in fact eyesight was especially keen for both of them. Morgan had even carried her own gift of instantly seeing and being able to assess any terrain, and of being able to tell what weapons or objects a person was brandishing at a distance by shape and the gleam of available light.

They came to one of the storage rooms for axes and lances that ringed the training area. Light streamed in from high windows and it was cool and quiet.

"Mother…" Morgan began, his lip quivering. He pulled back one sleeve of his coat and held out his hand to her, displaying the back. Upon it was a scar that sent ice water through Robin's spirit.

"No…no…" she mouthed. "It can't be… it…"

Upon her son's hand was a purple mark that looked like many ominous eyes strung together in "V" pattern. It was the very same mark that Robin had once had and had lost long ago when she'd re-emerged in the world fresh and fully-mortal.

"I had it when I woke up this morning," Morgan explained.

Robin grabbed him in a fierce hug and held his face to her chest. She began sniffling and was soon wracked with sobs. What came next surprised the boy completely. His mother started talking to no one in particular in an angry growl.

"You can't have him! You can't!"

Morgan knew the story of what this mark was supposed to represent, but he had not lived the story.

The door creaked open and Chrom entered. "Robin?" he asked, "Morgan? What's wrong?"

Robin harshly grabbed her son's wrist and thrust his hand forward. The Exalt's eyes widened. "No…" he whispered.

"It isn't going to hurt me, is it?" Morgan asked, calmer and cooler than his parents. "I don't think it should, logically speaking… right? Haven't' I already been marked by Naga?"

"Yes" Chrom said, hugging him, his face pale. He blinked as if trying to get his bearings. "You are ours…"

Robin quietly left the room to think.

* * *

"Mother, what does this mean for me?" Morgan asked as he sat across from her in her study before a gaming board.

"I believe it is merely an artifact of my genes," Robin assured him. "In any case, since you are your father's son as well as mine, you should be safe – you are too much a being of the light to be a vessel for the dark. The touch of Naga means that you will never be what I was intended to be."

"I…I am unclear on what you were meant to be, Mother," Morgan said as he carefully chose little carved black pieces representing various enemies and weapons-user classes from boxes to line up on the board.

"I do not remember my mother," Robin said causally as she lined up her own soldiers. "I only know my own father from conflict – and I don't dare call him a true father. He was more like a brood-sire. I was born to die, Morgan. It was only my body that was wanted… and some residue of my mind. I was to be absorbed by Grima completely. I defied my fate." She set a game piece down with a hard, sharp click.

"Was it hard?" Morgan asked in his interpersonally clueless way.

"Yes," his mother simply answered. "There was a part of me that wanted to give in… and to give up. This happened many times. There was a near-constant whisper in the back of my mind."

"But you can fight it?"

Robin looked up, the wording of the question catching her attention.

"Grima is dead" she said – more to assure herself than her son. She began moving her troops in counter to Morgan's movements.

"Haha!" Morgan proclaimed. "Uncle Vaike is down, fallen by my Risen Swordsman."

"Hmmm" Robin said, picking up the little hand-carved figure. All of the figures she was working with were made in the image of the Shepherds, each one individually-defined in contrast to the enemy-pieces. She righted the miniature Vaike. "What if I said he was full of zeal enough to get right back up and deal a critical hit?"

"He's down, Mother" Morgan said. "Accept it."

"Okay, okay," Robin laughed, relegating the figure to a box. "Off to the med tent with him."

"Or to the morgue-tent," Morgan said dourly.

Robin frowned. "You are getting very good," she praised, "Just remember that there are always variables in a true battle."

"I feel dark sometimes," Morgan confessed. He kept his eyes on the board, contemplating his next move.

"Dark?"

"Yes. I sometimes feel like there's something in my head pulling me down that's not really me."

Robin stared at the board and then gently looked up at her son, her eyes holding a sad starkness, the corners of her lips curled down. "I understand," she said. She set down a piece with another too-hard sharp click. "Grima may be gone but the fact that my blood has given you my curse tells me that some of his essence may remain in this world."

"Does he want to eat me?" Morgan asked; eyes wide with fear.

"Yes," Robin said matter-of-factly. "We are, as our Taguel friends might say, prey. Be cunning, oh prince with a thousand enemies…"

"Mother?"

"Anything that's left of him will never be able to come back into the world through you," Robin attempted to assure the boy. "You are already protected by the Divine Dragon."

"What if Naga isn't enough?" Morgan questioned, "Weren't she and Grima equal at one time? How do you know she is stronger?"

"I don't know if she, as an entity, is stronger" Robin admitted, "but I do know that love is stronger."

"Love? Aren't I too young for that, Mother?"

Robin laughed as she took out one of his archers.

"I don't necessarily mean romance, Morgan," Robin answered. "I mean, the invisible connections between people… bonds of all kinds."

"Oh, yeah, they're what brought you back, right?"

Robin nodded. "Now, you say you have darkness in the mind?"

"Yeah… Sometimes I feel like… like I'm tiny. There's something in me that makes me feel incredibly sad for no reason and like I don't matter. It doesn't even stop with that. Sometimes, I feel like I just want to be swallowed up by darkness and disappear."

"Do you feel destructive in any way?"

"Yes, Mother, I do. It's not so much wanting to hurt others than just wanting to tear myself apart. It's hard to explain."

"I understand," Robin said. "I know those feelings well. It feels like there's something in your head that's not you, doesn't it?"

Morgan nodded.

"Yet it feels like you at the same time…"

Morgan nodded again.

"It tells you that there isn't any hope and that you exist only for a cruel destiny."

"Is that what you had to fight, Mother?"

"Yes. It wanted to swallow me up and have its own way."

"How did you keep control… or get back control?"

"Well," she said, moving a figure further up the board, "connections with people do a lot to help. When you are having these kinds of feelings, talking with someone you trust will help you. Please talk with me or your father, or Lucina, or Mr. Fredrick, or Aunt Lissa or someone if you ever get the urge to hurt yourself."

"Okay."

"Remember that we all love you. There are many people who love you; even those who you might not realize have been paying any attention to you at all."

Morgan moved a pair of pieces. "I like that this board has everybody on it."

"It was a gift to me," Robin explained. "We tried to celebrate everyone's birthdays whenever possible, even in our war-camps. On my second birthday with the Shepherds, I was surprised with this board, custom-made. From what I was told, those who could carve carved out the little figures and then handed them to everyone with a bit of paint for painting so everyone painted themselves. That's why some of them are a little blotchy."

"You're grinning."

"Yeah… It was just so sweet for them all to go through such trouble to make me something nice, something that would make me smile. It signified their bonds to me. Oh, they said they pitched in to make it so I could have a more accurate representation of each of them and their strengths when working out battle-plans, but… I know they did it to make me happy."

"So… remembering friends is a good way to deal with the darkness…."

"Yes, if not the best way. What you can also do if you feel like you can't talk to anyone or are just in a situation where you are by yourself, you can remind yourself of who you really are."

"And, who am I, really, Mother?"

"I think you are a brilliant, brave and wonderful young man who is on his way to becoming a Grandmaster. However, you need to find out for yourself who you really are. I am sure you already know. Whenever you feel yourself being pulled down toward the darkness, remember that and shout in defiance of it."

"YOU WILL NOT TAKE ME!" Morgan shouted. Someone on the other side of the room apparently dropped a plate of dishes. "Like that, Mother?"

"Um… how about you keep it inside your head," Robin replied. "That's where you will need to shout. It's a within-yourself thing."

"I understand."

"Although if you are alone, say, out in the woods somewhere and there are no enemies around, you can go ahead and shout into the air if you need to."

"Won't that scare all the birds?"

"Tweet."

They made more moves and each lost more troops until they were both down to skeleton-armies. Morgan could have sworn he'd seen his mother sweating a little bit on her brow.

"You can take walks, too," she said quietly. "Whenever your heart is troubled…"

"You take lots of walks."

"I do. It helps. Anytime you feel that strange despair nipping at your heels – spiritually speaking – a bit of physical exercise or just getting out into the fresh air to clear your head can really help you beat it back."

"How will I know what is really me, Mother, and what is other?"

"You'll never know completely," she answered honestly. "But these are the tactics that have worked for me."

"Are you still fighting, Mother?"

"Yes. Even though Grima himself is gone… it's not as hard anymore, but there is some essence there. He will not devastate the world because I fought him with my friends. Still, there is a pain and darkness that he left in me that I still need to fight. He was not a fair loser."

"So… I won't win?"

"Oh, you will be victorious Morgan… though not on this board today – Checkmate!"

"Aw…. I almost had you!"

"Maybe next time."

"I am feeling a lot better now, Mother."

"That's good. Remember what I've told you. You may even craft your own strategies."

The mother and son cleaned up together. Robin silently seethed over the gall of whatever essence of Grima or just essence of evil left in the world had to torment her family despite being powerless, but she would do her utmost to guard her son's heart. After all, she had fought and had thus far won her battles.

Not all battles were fought in the daylight.

* * *

 **END.**

 **Shadsie, 2015**


End file.
